Daily Hampshire Gazette from Northampton, Massachusetts • a7

Thur sday, June 1 3, 2019 DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE A7gazet tenet.com statement was under con- sideration after Baker gave legislative leaders a dead- line of Friday to pass a delay so that employers could be notified, and DeLeo indi- cated that enough time. The Senate office said it planned to have the Senate vote on the delay Wednesday, with the lan- guage inserted into a sup- plemental budget bill. The speaker office did not im- mediately respond when asked for a timeline on a vote in that branch. Associated Industries of Massachusetts and labor groups wrote to Beacon Hill leaders on May 20 request- ing the delay, as well as fixes to better align the law with the federal Family and Medi- cal Leave Act and $3.5 mil- lion for the new state De- partment of Family and Medical Leave to do public information outreach. Family leave FROM A1 meetings with the team and is active ally or community Slack and Hoff said.

stands for lesbian, gay, bisex- ual, transgender, tioning, intersex, asexual, etc. A major component of the job which is on a volunteer ba- sis like all Noho Pride posi- tions is to maintain strong relationships with the local media. Sorrell, the outgoing spokesperson and a Daily Hampshire Gazette colum- nist, published an opinion piece, a last week in the Gazette criticizing drag queens as misogynistic and a mockery of and questioning their strong presence at the Noho Pride Day in May. The article generated consider- able discussion among Gazette readers, including several letters to the editor and social media comments taking issue with views, as well as some mes- sages of support. A local drag queen and Pride organizer, Hors published a guest column about the value of drag as an art form.

a fundamental wrote Hors all do- ing drag. None of us are born with social norms telling us who can and cannot wear cer- tain types of clothing or how we should Noho Pride also weighed in on column with a statement of its own: have love and adoration for our entire com- munity as well as our it reads, we are nothing short of delighted to present a stage for these beautiful hu- mans to express themselves through the art of perfor- mance We support the drag community and are happy to provide a stage for such energetic and important In addition to the spokesperson, the previous co-directors, Cid White and Stephanie Ques- nel, are also moving on, Slack and Hoff said. Slack, a social worker by day, and Hoff, who works as a visual merchandiser, will be stepping up to lead the group in the place of the co-direc- tors. For next parade, Slack and Hoff intend to make major changes, but the two said the group has de- cided to and plans to put on a prom event in October. They are also hoping to get more people involved.

The group is searching for a vol- unteer coordinator and volun- teers who have availability ranging from one year to one day Pride Day. is just one Hoff said, the amount of work that goes into it is astronomi- More information on how to get involved can be found on the Noho Pride website. Slack and Hoff also en- couraged people to reach out to them with feedback about the event. with these last week or two weeks, been a lot of attention on Noho Pride the drag column, all the different arti- cles and social media Hoff said. passionate about and want to get out there is that we love hearing from people If something you wish you could see, let us Greta Jochem can be reached at gazettenet.com.

Pride seeks new spokesperson FROM A1 Investigating agencies in- cluded U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, the United States Postal Inspec- tion Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with the assistance of Mas- sachusetts State Police, the Northwestern District Attor- ney Anti-Crime Task Force, and the Whately and Deer- field police departments. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Oakley is prosecuting. Northwestern District At- torney Office spokeswoman Mary Carey confirmed in a statement Wednesday morn- ing that federal agents exe- cuted search warrants at not only the South Deerfield ad- dress on Tuesday, but also at properties in Whately and Greenfield.

Attempts to con- tact Deerfield Police Chief John P. Paciorek Jr. and Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. were unsuc- cessful. Vehicles and men were seen entering and exiting a property at 223 State Road in Whately on Tuesday.

Whately Police Chief James Sevigne Jr. confirmed at the time that federal agents were conduct- ing an operation at the home. He said his department was involved, but not in charge of the operation. Recorder reporter David McLellan contributed to this re Fe FROM A1 working great for those in the upper 1 percent, but the time is now for all residents to reap the benefits of what this great state can accomplish through the revenue of the fair share said Demo- cratic Rep. James us- ing the term preferred by the most ardent sup- porters to describe it.

the lead House sponsor, cited two derailments on the Boston- area transit system in recent days as evidence the state needs more resources for transportation infrastructure. He also pointed to the educational achievement gap and long waiting lists for preschool programs in urban neighborhoods. Rep. Brad Jones, the House Republican leader, warned against a and scenario in which mil- lionaire tax revenue suppos- edly promised for education and transportation is in fact di- verted for other purposes. A proposal by Jones to add lan- guage further guaranteeing the revenue is spent exclu- sively on education and trans- portation was defeated in a mostly party-line vote.

Some potential drama was avoided just prior to Wednes- day debate when a handful of lawmakers withdrew pro- posed language that would go far beyond the millionaire tax and remove entirely the con- stitutional prohibition on a graduated income tax. Among U.S. states with in- come taxes, Massachusetts is one of just nine with a flat tax, while more than 30 have a graduated system that im- poses higher tax rates on higher levels of income and is considered fairer by many Democrats. No reason was immedi- ately given for the graduated tax language being with- drawn, but legislative leaders may have been weary after several previous votes by Mas- sachusetts residents against a graduated tax, most recently in 1994. In a statement, Jim Lyons, chairman of the state GOP, said abolishing the flat tax would be a cash grab masquerading as class war- After a lawsuit brought by several business-backed orga- nizations, the Supreme Judi- cial Court last year threw out the previous version of the millionaire tax, ruling it vio- lated restrictions placed on citizen initiatives by combin- ing taxes and spending.

Since the current proposal though identically worded was initiated by legislators rather than through voter peti- tions, legal experts say un- likely to face the same legal roadblock. Opponents have now refo- cused their efforts on warning lawmakers that revenues could fall well short of projec- tions if the millionaire tax causes wealthy taxpayers or business owners to leave the state. constitutional amend- ment will hurt Mas- said Rep. Marc Lombardo, a Republican who argued that high earners would become a if the measure became law. Crit- ics have argued that other states, including neighboring Connecticut, witnessed such an exodus after imposing higher taxes on the wealthy.

Millionaire tax advances FROM A1 By ISABEL DEBRE and FARES AKRAM Associated Press JERUSALEM When Palestinian preschooler Aisha a-Lulu came out of brain surgery in a strange Jerusalem hospital room, she called out for her mother and father. She re- peated the cry over and over, but her parents never came. Instead of a family member, Israeli authorities had ap- proved a stranger to escort Aisha from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the east Jerusalem hos- pital. As her condition deterio- rated, the child was returned to Gaza unconscious. One week later, she was dead.

A photo of Aisha smiling softly in her hospital bed, brown curls swaddled in bandages, drew an outpouring on social media. The wrenching details of her last days have shined a light on vastly complex and stringent system for issu- ing Gaza exit permits. It is a bureaucracy that has Israeli and Palestinian authori- ties blaming each other for its shortfalls, while inflicting a heavy toll on sick chil- dren and their parents. most difficult thing is to leave your child in the un- said Waseem a-Lulu, father. is just an hour away, but it feels as though it is another So far this year, roughly half of applications for patient com- panion permits were rejected or left unanswered by Israel, according to the World Health Organization.

That has forced over 600 patients, including some dozen children under 18, to make the trek out of the terri- tory alone or without close fam- ily by their side. The system stems from the Hamas militant takeover of Gaza in 2007, when it violently ousted the Western- backed Palestinian Authority. Israel and Egypt responded by imposing a blockade that tightly restricted movement in and out of Gaza. The blockade, which Israel says is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming, has pre- cipitated a financial and hu- manitarian crisis in the en- clave. For years, 2 mil- lion residents have endured ris- ing poverty and unemployment, undrinkable groundwater and frequent electricity outages.

Public hospitals wrestle with chronic shortages of drugs and basic medical equipment. Is- rael blames Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group, for the crisis. In what it portrays as a hu- manitarian gesture to help civilians, Israel permits Palestinian patients to seek medical treatment at hospitals in Israel and the West Bank once they pass a series of bu- reaucratic hurdles. COGAT, the Israeli defense body that issues the permits, says it insists that all patients cross with an es- cort, usually a close relative, unless they wish to go alone or require immediate treatment that allow time for secu- rity screening. In order to get a permit, pa- tients must first submit a diag- nosis to the West Bank-based Palestinian Health Ministry, proving that their treatment i available in Gaza.

Then a Palestinian liaison requests exit permits from COGAT, which re- views the applications and passes them to Shin Bet security agency for back- ground checks. According to WHO, the ap- proval rate has plummeted in recent years. It said that in 2012, Israel al- lowed in of patients and of their companions for treatment. For the month of April 2019, the figure stands at just of patients and of their companions. A COGAT official disputed the figures, saying they take into account that the num- ber of permit applications has grown as health care system deteriorates, and that Israel has started issuing per- mits less regularly but for pro- longed stays.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under agency rules, said COGAT has tried to ease restrictions by designating a permit specifically for parents of child patients. The agency said it issued 4,000 permits for patient es- corts in the first quarter of 2019, including 1,398 for parents of sick children. After being diagnosed with brain cancer, Aisha received immediate approval to get out of Gaza for what was hoped to be life-saving surgery. But when her parents approached the Palestinian Civil Affairs Commission for escort permits, their process ground to a halt. To their bewilderment, Palestinian officials told them not to apply, saying it was too i y.

At 37, Waseem is below the age that Israel deems accept- able for swift entry on security grounds. Today, all men under 55 require extra screening, which means waiting, usually for months, according to Mor Efrat, the Gaza and West Bank director for Physicians for Hu- man Rights Israel. As for mother, Muna, a quirk of her upbringing in Egypt left her without an official Israeli-is- sued ID card required to re- ceive a permit. tell families to find a companion that give Is- rael any reason to said Osama Najar, spokesman for the Palestinian Health Ministry. want to save the child and, yes, that can mean sending them parents said they scoured for alternatives, apply- ing for an aunt and her 75-year- old grandmother, but Israel re- jected both.

But a permit for Halima al-Ades, a remote fam- ily acquaintance whom Aisha had never met, was approved. Muna said she had no choice but to sign consent form and whisk her daughter out of Gaza for immediate treatment. She said the frustra- tion of the sprawling bureau- cracy, and the painful memory of her 5-year-old daughter cry- ing for her on the phone during her last days, haunts her. was the hardest time of my she said. heart was being ripped out every day and every Sick Gaza child, caught in red tape, dies alone ISR AEL AP PHOTO Muna Awad, mother of 5-year-old Aisha a-Lulu, shows a photo of her daughter while Aisha is in a Jerusalem hospital, May 27, at the family home in Burij refugee camp, Gaza Strip.

By BERNARD CONDON and TOM KRISHER Associated Press NEW YORK It was an accident, not terrorism, but this helicopter crash on the roof of a midtown Man- hattan skyscraper has raised serious security concerns be- cause of the ease with which the chopper ventured into one of the most tightly re- stricted no-fly zones. Some of the questions be- ing posed are the same ones that bedeviled authorities af- ter nearly two decades ago: Are they able to react quickly enough to a rogue air- craft? What can they realisti- cally do? Is scrambling fighter jets and shooting down the in- truder really feasible over densely populated city streets? Experts say the answers are not so reassuring. someone had bad intent and they took off from the heli- port and made a beeline to Trump Tower, none of the good guys are going to get in the air fast enough to stop said Steven Bucci, a re- tired Army Special Forces offi- cer who help design the post- system to guard U.S. airspace. Ever since President Don- ald election in 2016, a one-mile radius around Trump Tower has been designated National Defense Airspace, one of the highest-level re- strictions, requiring express permission from the Federal Aviation Administration for any flights below 3,000 feet and constant radio communication with air traffic control.

Pilots who adhere to the restriction, according to the FAA, may be detained and interviewed by law and United States government may use deadly force if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent security Investigators say the pilot who died in the crash Monday afternoon just a few blocks from Trump Tower did not seek such permission and i contact air traffic control because he required to do so, given his intended route, which was supposed to take him around Manhattan to the home base in New Jersey. After taking off from a heli- port on East Side, the chopper instead strayed over midtown in heavy rain and thick fog and slammed into the roof of the 750-foot AXA Equitable build- ing during a flight that lasted 11 minutes. An official who was briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity be- cause the federal investigation is still going on said that 58- year-old commercial pilot Tim McCormack radioed just be- fore the crash that he was lost and trying to get back to the heliport. Whether anyone noticed the intrusion into the no-fly zone before the crash is unclear. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board officials said that question is under investigation.

The New York Police Department has a squadron of helicopters that patrol the airspace, but none were in the air at the time of the crash. Mayor Bill de Blasio is among those calling for tighter regulation of helicopter flights over the city. think the FAA needs to look at this very he said on CNN. they need to toughen up their rules or put more security or monitoring of the situation to make sure something like this happen The airspace over certain areas key government buildings and defense installa- tions, for example has long been off-limits to planes and helicopters. The use of tempo- rary flight restrictions, or TFRs, grew rapidly after the Sept.

11 attacks and came to include bans over major sport- ing events and areas around presidential visits. Federal and civilian air offi- cials say it is not unusual for pilots to venture into such ar- eas without permission, and normally it is just a mistake by a pilot who has strayed off course. Air traffic controllers try to reach the pilot by radio and tell the person how to safely leave the area and land at an airport, and pilots usu- ally cooperate. In the rare cases when the pilot answer the radio or disobeys a in- structions, the FAA contacts North American Aerospace Defense Command to inter- cept the offending aircraft and guide it out of the no-fly zone. If that work, authori- ties may take more drastic ac- tion.

On Sept. 11, 2001, fighter jets were scrambled from bases in Virginia and Mas- sachusetts to engage the hi- jacked passenger planes, but the airliners went down before the jets could get close. Chopper crash raises question of securing NYC skies.